A Sticky Situation
by TweenisodeOrange
Summary: Danny Phantom only narrowly escaped Skulker's new trap, and now he can't get the goop-trap off him. The ghost boy decides to go to his Nicktoon friends for help, but Skulker's still in pursuit of his prey.
1. The Trap

**Author's Note: Well, this is my first multi-chapter fanfic on this site since I finished "I Guess You Had to Be There"... wish me luck.**

****_The Trap_

Danny really hated it when he lost track of Skulker. It usually meant the hunter ghost was laying a trap somewhere. He'd have to be extra cautious.

"Now, if I were a messed up ghost who wanted to mount someone's pelt on a wall, where would I hide?" Danny asked himself, scanning the surrounding buildings, looking carefully in the shadows the streetlights cast on the cloudy, starless night.

He finally caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, something had slipped behind a billboard advertizing the new milkshakes at the Nasty Burger. The ghost boy shot a quick ectoblast under the sign; he was trying not to cause too much collateral damage tonight.

Not to his surprise, Skulker gave a quick grunt of pain before phasing through the billboard and returning Danny's fire. The teenager easily blocked them with a shield.

"Well, Skulker, I know your brute force and 'hunter's skill' hasn't succeeded in catching me yet, but somehow I doubt weaker, more obvious attacks will work either." He taunted.

"I don't expect a whelp like you to understand my tactics." Skulker replied moodily before flying down into an abandoned building.

"Holing yourself up in there isn't going to help you!" Danny shouted as he gave chase, phasing through the wall. He was surprised to find Skulker standing right there with some sort of potato launcher pointed straight at him.

"Of course it won't." Skulker quipped, launching a volley of green goop before Danny could do more than raise his hands up to protect his face. The goo stuck to the ghost boy's hands like a giant slimy green Chinese finger trap.

"This new trap, on the other hand," The hunter continued "Is working wonderfully."

The halfa tried to phase through the stuff, but of course, it didn't work. He hadn't really expected it too, but hey, you never know when the baddies might forget the obvious. He quickly jumped out of the way before Skulker could fire another round of the ecto-goo, trying to fire a ghost-ray from his palm in mid-air. The goop just absorbed it, briefly glowing green, but not disintegrating or even showing signs of breaking down.

"Ok, so hand blasts are out." Danny said, "Good thing I've still got plenty of _kick!_" He swept his leg under Skulker, tripping the large ghost.

Danny flew out of the building at top speed. He knew that wouldn't keep Skulker down for more than a second.

He tried once again to pull his hands out of the green glob of goo, but it stuck fast. It was like he'd gotten them stuck in some giant wad of gum. This was bad. He kind of needed his hands, not just for fighting, he could fight alright with just kicking and eye-beams, but for operating the Fenton Thermos and his parents' other ghost-hunting tech. Heck, how was he going to take notes in school, or read a book or…"

"Oh, duh." Danny would've slapped his forehead if his hands were free. The stuff was obviously meant for ghosts. It may have been a problem for Danny Phantom, but Danny Fenton should be able to slip right out of it!

He landed in the alley beside his house and changed back to human form. The goo was still there after the change. Danny pulled. Still there, still stuck. Of course. Skulker had designed it specifically for halfas. Great.

Speaking of Skulker, the hunter had located his prey and fired another volley of goo into the alley-way. Danny ducked behind a dumpster for cover and phased through the wall into the living room. He dashed up the stairs to grab (well, not literally) his Recaller.

Yes, the Nicktoons' Recaller. A device invented by Jimmy Neutron that allowed him to travel between the universes of his friends. It was useful for slipping away when things got hectic at home, or for getting a little extra help when a really problematic ghost reared its ugly head. Danny couldn't seem to get the goo off on his own, but he knew someone who'd be able to remove it in the blink of an eye, _just like magic._

He soon remembered he had a little problem. With his hands bound in the green goop, pressing the buttons to operate the device would be tricky. Danny finally got the Recaller to work by using his toes and getting creative. He set the coordinates for Dimsdale, but glanced outside before opening the portal. Skulker was still waiting outside, confident that his prey would have to leave the house sooner or later. Danny couldn't just leave the ghost there. His parents would get quite… _over-excited_ if they found the ghost staking out their house, and they'd only get _more_ excited when they figured out he was hunting their son. Better lead him away now and avoid the whole fiasco.

The ghost boy turned back into his ghost form, tucked the Recaller under his arm, and flew out the wall. Unsurprisingly, Skulker was waiting and ready, shooting another fountain of goop that the teen ghost only narrowly avoided. The two flew at high speeds over the network of streets until Danny suddenly dived into the park, hiding in a stand of trees. Before Skulker could follow, he opened the portal to Dimsdale and stepped in, leaving the baffled hunter behind.

_Seconds Later in Dimsdale_

Timmy Turner was enjoying summer vacation by forgetting as much scholarly information as he could and replacing it with the latest saga of the Crimson Chin. The boy in the pink hat was unfazed by the portal that opened up in his room.

"Cosmo, did you invite Sheen over without telling us again?" He asked his green-eyed goldfish.

"Uh, I don't think so," the disguised fairy replied, "But then again, I _do_ have the memory span of a gold… wait, what was the question?"

Danny Phantom stepped out of the portal, breathless and looking a little worse for wear.

"Danny? What're you doing here? What happened to your arms, and why aren't you wearing shoes?" Timmy asked. Wanda _poofed_ up a new pair for the teen.

"Sorry to drop in unannounced, but I've gotten myself into a bit of a… uh… _sticky_ situation." Danny chuckled at his own pun. He explained how Skulker had sprung a trap on him. "I've tried getting it off on my own, but I haven't made any progress. Do you think Cosmo and Wanda could magic it off?"

"I don't know Danny; ghost stuff tends to be pretty resistant to magic." Wanda warned him.

"Hey, it's worth a shot!" Timmy said optimistically, "I wish the green goo Danny's trapped in was gone."

The fairies waved their wands, but the goop just absorbed the magical energy.

"Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained." Cosmo said simply.

Danny groaned. "There's got to be some way to get rid of it. Maybe if I build up enough of a blast it'll…" He trailed off, feeding as much energy as he could into an ectoblast between his trapped hands. The goo glowed green as it absorbed the energy. Danny closed his eyes and pushed for more power, tried to break the bonds through sheer force.

"Uh, Danny…" Timmy poked the older boy in the back.

"What?" the halfa asked through gritted teeth, all his concentration on building up the ectoblast.

"Look!"

Danny opened his eyes and notice that the goop was growing and climbing further up his arms. It was almost up to his elbows now. He gasped and quickly stopped the charge.

"Ok, don't think I should try _that_ again."

"Your parents are ghost experts; wouldn't they be able to find a way to get it off?" Wanda asked.

Danny imagined how his parents would react to the situation.

"_Don't worry Danny," Jack Fenton said confidently, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, "We'll get that gunk off you!" He then stuck a great big electrode into the goop and ran out of the lab. "CLEAR!"_

_A charge of electricity shot out of the electrode, leaving Danny fried and the goop untouched._

"_Oh, I could have sworn that would work!" Maddie sighed. "Don't worry sweetie, we can still try the acid."_

"I… think we should leave that as a… last resort." Danny stammered. "Besides, I bet Jimmy could get it off with his scientific knowledge."

Timmy and his fairies just shrugged. "Alright, it's your problem; you decide how to fix it." The boy in the pink hat said.

**Author's Note:**

**I've had this idea for a long, long time. It originally came up while I was writing Two much of a Good Thing as a sub-plot for a potential sequel. Sequel never worked out, but this idea stuck.**

**I debated a long time whether I wanted this story, nay, this whole continuity of stories that I'm planning, would be pre or post Phantom Planet. I finally decided on post, as it gives me new grounds to explore, rather than the usual business that's already been explored a lot on the original show.**

**Hope you enjoy and review!**


	2. Making A Mess

**Author's Note: The 'write an hour a day' thing has been going pretty well so far. I think I could actually churn out a chapter a week! (Well great, now I've jinxed it...)**_  
_

Making a Mess

Minutes earlier, Danny had opened a portal to Dimsdale with some trouble, what with his hands being bound in a sticky trap. Enough trouble, in fact, that he forgot to push the button that would close the portal behind him.

Skulker searched the park for his prey. He'd had his guard down when the ghost boy had taken a steep dive, but he couldn't be thrown off that easily. The goo-trap he'd developed had a unique, easily tracked ectoplasmic signature, and it wouldn't come off without the special solvent he'd developed alongside it. He grumbled inwardly, reprimanding himself for not setting the goo-launcher to fire a larger spray that would have completely encased the whelp.

The ghost boy had flown into a stand of trees with thick brush growing underneath. A perfect place to hide from someone who could see you even when you were invisible. The hunter knew instinctively that his prey would take a breather there.

Skulker blasted the underbrush away with a well placed ghost ray. To his surprise, the ghost boy was no longer there. However, there was a swirling pink portal. The ghost grinned. "There is no place on Earth, in the Ghost Zone, or wherever else you might flee, that I won't find you."

_Meanwhile in Retroville_

Jimmy was in one of those rare between-projects moments. He'd successfully developed a synthetic crystal that could replace the so-called heat resistant glass that hadn't been heat resistant enough to protect the lab from testing his new rocket booster (His parents were still a little sore about that fire) and the new soil sample from Mars was a day in coming. It was supposed to be a time he could relax and hang out with Carl and Sheen, but now that they'd gone home for the night he was bored.

That's when the dimensional portal activated. Jimmy turned quickly and fingered the button that would activate emergency security measures. It was probably just Turner or Spongebob, come over to see if he was busy, but you could never be too careful.

It was Turner. And Danny, surprisingly. Jimmy did a double take. What was that strange green substance encasing the teen's arms?

"Hello Danny, Turner." The boy genius greeted them. "What happened? Did Turner go overboard with his fairy-programs again?"

Timmy frowned. "Do you just assume _everything_ is my fault?"

Jimmy grinned. Irking Turner was fun.

Danny shook his head. "Actually, it was a ghost I've had a lot of experience with. His name's Skulker, he's a hunter, and _I'm_ his favorite prey. This—" He tried to gesture with his arms, but it was hard with the goop restricting his movement, "—is his latest trap. I've tried slipping out of it or destroying it myself, and magic... uh, programs… don't affect it. I was hoping you'd be able to get rid of it."

Jimmy's face brightened. This sounded like a nice challenge to preoccupy him. He pulled on some gloves, grabbed a pair of tongs, and got to work.

"Hmmm, highly viscous… translucent green…" he muttered as he pulled at the gunk experimentally, "Seems to be bonded _pretty tightly_ to your ghost from. It still sticks when you're human?"

Danny nodded glumly.

"Interesting…" He pulled at the goop even harder, pulling a bit like taffy, and then tried to cut it with a laser. It was absorbed, and the strand grew slightly.

"Uh, try not to feed it energy. That just makes it bigger." Timmy warned.

"Fascinating!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Uh, since I can't get a sample, could you come over here Danny?" He motioned to a large microscope.

That was how they spent the next few minutes, Danny walking from one scientific instrument to the next as Jimmy tried to analyze the goo's chemical composition and how it was bonded to the ghost boy. Timmy followed, more bored than interested.

"It's mostly organic, with ectoplasmic compounds." Jimmy finally stated. "It appears to be made of some sort of synthetic ghost proteins, similar to the mucus gastropods secrete to stick to walls, but much more viscous. It appears to have bonded with the ectoplasm in your cell membranes, which I suppose are there but dormant in your human form. Of course, I'm just extrapolating most of this from a few observations, I'll have to run more tests to know for sure if—"

"Ok stop." Danny interrupted the genius's before he went even deeper into science Danny didn't understand, "Did you learn anything that might get whatever it is _off me_?"

"Well, like I said, I'll have to do some more tests to get definite results, but it appears to be organic, so if we can isolate an enzyme that breaks down the substance, it'll deteriorate."

Danny and Timmy stared blankly.

Jimmy sighed. "Yes."

Danny sighed with relief. "Thanks Jimmy, I really owe you one!"

The boy with the fudgy hair smiled at the praise. "It's my pleasure, what are friends for?"

_Back with Skulker_

The portal had remained open, but the exit to Dimsdale had closed. Skulker was now in the Plane between Worlds. Oddly enough though, he could still detect the ectoplasmic signature of the goo-trap. The hunter followed it until he came to another pink portal, this one looking in on a dim room full of technological gizmos that would make Technus squee with delight. More important were the three figures in the room. Two small boys, and his quarry.

Like any good hunter, Skulker waited for the opportune moment to strike. The three of them wandered around the lab from one station to the next with no rhyme or reason the ghost could see. Finally they came in front of the portal, seemingly feet away, but in reality an entire dimension separated them. Now that the right moment was here, he wasted no time, and flew into the portal.

_In the Lab_

The portal activated again as soon as the boys walked in front of it.

"You expecting someone?" Timmy asked Jimmy.

"No… but then, I wasn't expecting you two. It's probably Spongebob." The boy genius reasoned.

And then Skulker attacked.

The hunter ghost leapt into Danny's chest, knocking the teen (and the cabinet he was leaning against) over. The ghost boy responded with a charged kick in the face before leaping up and firing an eye beam at his attacker. Skulker fired a few mini-missiles in return. Danny tried to make a shield to block it, but with his hands bound, it was practically impossible. He was blasted back into a monitor.

"Hey!" Jimmy shouted, "This equipment is delicate, and by no means easy or cheap to build. Kindly take your squabble out—whoa!"

Timmy pulled the irate genius out of the way before a bolt from Skulker fried him. "The only way they're going to take the fight outside is if Danny manages to slip out!"

The teenaged halfa knew he was causing a lot of damage, but slipping outside of Jimmy's lab would only take the destruction out into the neighborhood where people could get hurt. Maybe if he slipped back through the dimensional portal… he could take care of Skullker back in Amity Park and come back to take care of the goop later.

Danny slipped under another blast from Skulker and made a dash for the portal. "Come and get me!" He called over his shoulder before stepping in.

"Impudent whelp!" Skulker growled, flying after him.

Suddenly, Jimmy and Timmy were standing alone in the lab.

"Oh great…" Jimmy muttered and stepped up to the dimensional portal, checking some settings.

"What, what's wrong?" Timmy asked.

"He didn't set a destination! By default, it'll send them to the last one set."

"So… they're going back to Dimsdale?" The boy in the pink hat cringed. His parents wouldn't notice if he wasn't in his room, but they'd probably notice a violent ghost fight.

"No, the last destination set from _this_ portal." Jimmy corrected. "And that would be… Tremorton. I was visiting Mz. Wakeman to get some advice on a new up-grade for Goddard."

"Well, we'd better go and help." Timmy said with determination. "Danny's at a disadvantage right now. Didn't you notice? He usually fights way better than that, but this ghost hunter guy was blasting him to bits."

Jimmy nodded gravely. "Danny is usually one of the best fighters I know, a ghost like that wouldn't normally be much of a problem for him. Hopefully he'll find help from Jenny before it's too late."

**Author's Note: Itty-bitty reference to "Uber-Awesome Fun Party" in here, I like doing stuff like that.**

******It's weird, I'm alot less busy staying at college and working a part-time job than I would be if I went home. You would think it'd be the other way around.**

******So, hopefully I'll finish the next chapter soon, but I'm pacing the chapters at one per weekend, so I don't dump a whole bunch of junk and then hit a huge wall of writer's block.**

******Please Review!**


	3. Danny's Problem

**Author's note: You know how I said that I was going to upload a new chapter every weekend? Well, that didn't work out, because I had an exam last Monday, and I was too busy studying to upload. Then this past week I've been too busy because of the exam, work, and Independence Day taking up my time. Hopefully I'll do better in the future.**

Danny's Problem

The portal opened up over Tremorton High School. This was Danny's first sign that something had gone amiss.

"This isn't Amity Park! What happened?" He asked no one in particular, looking around in confusion until Skulker flew out of the portal a second later and unloaded a bunch of ecto-blasts into the ghost boy's back. The hunter's prey stalled in midair, then plummeted into the parking lot below.

_Meanwhile…_

Jenny Wakeman was carrying a projector under her arm, followed by her friends Brad and Tuck Carbuncle, who were both carrying camp chairs and blankets.

"Are you sure it's ok for us to use the wall of the school building for our projector screen?" Tuck asked.

"Relax, Tuck." Brad assured his younger brother, "School's out, and it's night. Who's going to care?"

"Besides, everyone knows the only way to experience 'Pocahontas in Space' is on the biggest screen imaginable." Jenny added.

The three friends reached the parking lot when a swirling pink portal opened up above them. A figure came out, looking around in a daze, before another exited and blasted the first out of the air.

"Oh my gosh!" Jenny shot into the air to catch the falling figure. "Danny?" She gasped.

The teen groaned and smiled weakly. "Hey Jen, sorry, I didn't mean to bring my fight to you."

"What happened? Why're your arms—" She began.

"Long story." Danny said. "You might want to take care of_ that_ guy first." He nodded up to Skulker, who had noticed the ghost boy's lack of splat.

The teenaged robot fired a laser at the hunter ghost, but he just phased through it. Skulker fired an ecto-blast of his own as counterattack. Danny turned the two of them intangible, but the blast nearly missed Brad and Tuck in the parking lot below.

"Skulker's after me, I'll lead him away—" the ghost boy started, but Jenny cut him off.

"Oh no you don't! You're already injured_ and_ your arms are basically useless right now. You need help."

Danny flew out of Jenny's grasp. "So maybe I do need help, but I'm not going to let your friends get hurt because of my problem!" With that he fired an eyebeam into Skulker's face, sending the hunter hurtling into the flagpole, which in turn slapped him into the pavement.

Jenny sighed and flew down to her friends. "It looks like we're going to have to cut movie night short. You guys should head home."

"Aw, but I wanna see the fight!" Tuck protested.

"_Tuck._" Brad reprimanded him.

"Oh, alright…"

Meanwhile, across the parking lot, Skulker was in hand to foot combat with Danny. A kick to the chest-plate, a punch to the face. Suddenly, the hunter opened up a panel in his shoulder that fired another small missile. The halfa was blasted back against the school wall. He glanced over and noticed Jenny's friends leaving for home, and the robot rocketing overhead into the light of the moon.

"And after all this time," Skulker said triumphantly, "I've finally got you right where I want y—Why are you smirking like that?"

"Three. Two. One." Danny said before Jenny landed a pile-drive kick directly onto the ghost's head.

The teenage robot stepped off the slightly crushed hunter. "Ok, so now you can suck him up in your ghost catcher thingy now, right?"

Danny once again found himself unable to slap his forehead. He hadn't been able to grab the Fenton Thermos before he left for Timmy's house.

"Unfortunately, no. I forgot the Thermos…"

Skulker groaned and shakily got up.

"…And that hit won't keep him down." The ghost boy finished.

Jenny attempted to punch Skulker in the jaw, but the ghost was expecting her this time and phased through it before firing some more missiles at the robot girl.

"Sheesh Skulker, how many missiles do you have?" Danny asked incredulously.

"As many as I need to have your head as a trophy!" the hunter replied.

"Uhg, that's disgusting!" Jenny commented.

The three continued their fight in the empty parking lot, Danny kicking and eye-blasting, Skulker firing ecto-blasts and missiles, and Jenny getting a laser or a punch in when Skulker wasn't paying attention. However, the hunter ghost wasn't showing any signs of tiring, while the ghost boy was now breathing heavily.

"I know something that'll keep him down for a while," Danny said quietly to Jenny, "but it'll use up a lot of my energy. Get behind me and be ready for something _really_ loud." Jenny nodded and turned off her sound receptors.

The ghost boy spread his legs apart into a steady stance and took in a deep breath. Skulker realized what was coming a second too late. The Ghostly Wail ripped through the hunter's armor and knocked him unconscious. Unfortunately it also rendered the halfa unconscious.

Jenny grabbed him as he reverted back to his human form, before he collapsed. "Danny, are you alright?" She asked worriedly.

"That was **awesome!**" Tuck suddenly popped up from behind a fence.

"Tuck! You were supposed to go home with Brad!"

"Yeah, and it's a good thing I didn't, look what I would've missed!" The young boy exclaimed.

Danny came to after a few seconds. "That… should keep Skulker down… long enough for me to… go home and grab a Fenton Thermos." He panted, "But just in case… maybe we should see if your mom… has any inventions that'll hold a ghost in the meantime."

**Author's Note: Well, I try my hand at action writing again in this chapter. Tell me what you think. It's never been a strong point of mine, since my writing usually consists largely of dialogue.**


	4. Wasting Time

**Author's Note: Ok everybody, I'm really sorry. I thought I could do the update every weekend thing, but my chemistry class is a little more time consuming than I originally anticipated. That and the Olympics have started, and in case you didn't know, I'm a bit of an Olympic nut. _And_ on top of that, I'm getting read for field camp, which I leave for on the 12th of August. Two weeks of nothing but Geology. It's gonna be great, but obviously I'm not going to be able to write during that time. I'll see if I can get the last chapter up before then, but since finals are this week, it's not likely.**

**Again, I'm really sorry, but then, if you've been following my stories for long, you already knew I was terrible with updates.**

Wasting Time

Jimmy and Timmy exited the portal in Tremorton, only to find the streets empty. Granted, it _was_ rather late, but they'd expected some sort of scuffle at the very least. They were walking past the school parking lot when they noticed the blast craters and the bent-out-of-shape flagpole.

"Apparently we missed the fight." Timmy commented.

Jimmy examined a blast crater more closely. "This is from a laser blast, not an ecto blast. I guess Danny was able to find Jenny after all."

"Well, if the fight's over, where are they now?" The boy in the pink hat asked.

"Chances are they headed to the Wakeman's house." The boy genius replied, "We'd better hurry to catch them.

_At the Wakeman's House_

"Hey, uh, Mom, we've kind of got an emergency." Jenny told her mother when she opened the door.

"Hmm?" Mz. Wakeman wondered before glancing past her daughter and noticing the teenage boy covered in green goo and the battered, glowing hunk of scrap behind her. "Oh good heavens!" she cried, "What happened?"

"It's kind of a long story." Danny said, "And we don't have a lot of time. Do you have anything that could safely trap a ghost long enough for me to go back home and get my own trap?"

The scientist shook her head. "I'm afraid not, but I daresay I could build one, given time."

The ghost boy noticed Skulker's finger twitch. "How much time?"

"Oh, an hour or so."

"Mom, as soon as that guy comes too, he's going to be _really_ mad. Like tear down the town mad. And he wants Danny's head as a trophy or something." Jenny explained, "We don't have an hour."

Mz. Wakeman thought for a moment before poking the goop gluing Danny's arms together. "And what's this?"

The halfa sighed. "This is what started this whole mess. It's trapped my arms, which makes it a lot harder to fight."

She continued to poke at it experimentally. "A sticky trap? Interesting. What is its composition?"

Danny tried to remember what Jimmy had said it was made of. "Ectoplasm and… I don't really know what else."

"Well, if we could get this off, that'd give you a fighting chance against this…" She glanced over at Skulker, who was still lying in a heap on the front step, "…thing when he wakes up. Have you tried dissolving it in ectoplasm? 'Like dissolves like' after all."

"I haven't really had a chance to try _anything_. Jimmy said an enzyme would probably work, but Skulker attacked before he had a chance to try it."

Mz. Wakeman began wondering out loud again. "I wonder if there are ectoplasmic enzymes? That could work… but where would you get them? Oh, obviously… but it's such a low concentration… oh, but it could be synthesized, theoretically anyway…"

Danny glanced at Jenny for clarification, but she just shrugged.

Skulker twitched again.

"Mom, we're really wasting time. He'll come around any minute now. Can you dissolve Danny's trap or not?"

"Well, of course, all I need is—"

"Hey, there they are!" An excited voice shouted. Cosmo zipped up to the front door with Wanda, Timmy, and Jimmy not far behind.

"What are you guys doing here?" Jenny asked.

"We wanted to make sure Danny is OK." Timmy explained.

"And make sure Skulker isn't causing too much havoc." Jimmy added.

"I just didn't want to miss the fight." Cosmo said.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. "Great, one of you guys can run to my house in Amity Park and grab a Fenton Thermos while we make sure Skulker stays down."

"And while I find a solvent for that trap." Mz. Wakeman added.

Skulker twitched.

"Oh, I was looking into that." Jimmy said conversationally, "It's an organic compound, an enzyme should facilitate the break-down. All we need to do if isolate the right one."

The ghost's hands balled up into fists.

"Ah yes, I think I have the solution to that." The elder scientist replied, "You know the old adage, 'Like dissolves like', and it appears that ghosts have their own proteins and DNA. It would only make sense that they have their own enzymes as well. All we need is a small sample to synthesize more from."

The flames on his head grew slightly hotter.

"Assuming that the enzyme has a simple structure that can be readily replicated." Jimmy added.

His eyes slit open.

"Well, yes, but I do have a rather good protein synthesis dish, back from my rat-cloning days…"

Skulker sprang up without warning, sending a ghost-ray straight into Danny's chest. The ghost boy few back and crashed into the stairs.

They had just run out of time.

**Author's Note: In which our heroes stand around talking so long that their enemy gets back on his feet. Way to go guys. (I hope that this was written well, and that I didn't just make everyone look like blathering idiots...)**


	5. Sweet Relief

**Author's Note: Well, here we are. Sorry for the wait. Man, I was going to write so much this summer, but then, bam, the time just slips away. But I did do a lot of other good things this summer. Like get a job, and go to field camp. Ah, so much fun. And who knows, I might keep writing through fall semester. We'll see, it's kind of a large lode this time around.**

Sweet Relief

Skulker strode heavily to the stairs where Danny had crashed. The hunter ghost was panting heavily, still worn from the earlier battle, but he was still in better shape than the halfa, who'd just taken a full-powered ghost-ray to the chest while in his human form. The impact with the stairs had only compounded the damage.

"I'm growing tired of this hunt, especially with all the _interference._" Skulker glanced angrily over his shoulder at Jenny. He made a move to pick up Danny by the neck, but before he even touched the ghost boy, a gold star stuck itself into his arm and detonated.

"You want him?" Timmy asked confidently, "You're gonna have to go through us first!"

"I have had _ENOUGH_ of this nonsense!" Skulker exploded. It'd been a long day, some robot had left a considerable dent in his head, and now this kid was trying to keep him from his prey when he was _this close_ to the final blow. The hunter ghost was at the end of his rope. "You want me to go through you?"

Wanda _poofed_ Timmy out of the way just a split second before Skulker rocketed through the spot where the buck-toothed boy had just been standing. The ghost whipped around to find the boy standing in the street. He locked several missiles on the kid and fired them all at once, but again, he _poofed_ away before a single explosion.

"Well, if I can't hit you…" the hunter caught Jimmy in his sights. "This one with the big head will do nicely."

Jimmy didn't notice the ecto blast coming at him until it was too late to react, but luckily Jenny was standing close enough to catch it in an energy scoop and launch it back at the ghost. Skulker was knocked out the open door and onto the lawn, where Jenny tried to follow up with a spiked fist. He phased through it and blasted the robot girl away. He stood and aimed another blast at Jimmy, but the boy genius had whipped out a device by now. The gadget fired two pulses; the first consuming the ecto blast and the second sending a shockwave through Skulker's armor, despite the ghost's intangibility.

"Wow Jimmy, you actually landed a hit on him!" Jenny said, impressed.

"Oh, it's just a little something I whipped up after looking at the Fentons' equipment." He replied with false modesty.

As tired as Skulker was getting, he was twice as mad, and his rage gave him the energy to get up and blast at those infernal children again. The robot girl caught the blasts again, but this time the ghost was expecting her to fling them back at him, and he shielded against them.

Suddenly, the buck-toothed one appeared again, making faces and beckoning mockingly to the ghost. Skulker knew the boy was just trying to lead him away, but both his rage and his pride over-rid his common sense. He'd chase that annoyance across the earth if it meant he could squash the boy. The hunter sped after the retreating child.

_Back in the Wakeman house_

Danny woke up groggily when someone placed an ice pack on his back. He was lying on his stomach on a couch. He tried to stretch, but there was something sticking his arms together. That's when it all flooded back. The trap, the fight with Skulker in Jimmy's lab, then in the school parking lot, and finally at Jenny's house. He rolled slowly onto his side and looked at the goop encasing his arms. It was even bigger now, up to his shoulders, sticking his arms firmly to his sides.

"Oh great." Danny muttered.

"Yes, apparently it grew when it absorbed most of the ecto-blast from that hunter." Mz. Wakeman said as she came into the living room with another ice pack and a cup. "It's a good thing it did too. I'm no expert on ghosts, but I daresay if you'd taken the full blow… well, it wouldn't have been good."

She then pushed him back onto him stomach. "Lie down, you're lucky you didn't break your back when you fell into the stairs. Spit into this." She held the cup in front of his mouth.

Danny ignored her commands and actually sat up. "Where's Skulker? What happened to everyone else?"

The elderly robotics doctor frowned and forcefully pushed the teenager back into a laying position before sticking a swab into his mouth.

"XJ-9 and your friends led the hunter off so I could treat you and hopefully get rid of that substance trapping your arms. You're recovering fairly quickly, and if you'll do as I tell you, I should have a solvent ready in a few minutes."

Danny spit the swab out, which Mz. Wakeman barely caught. "I've gotta go. It's my fault Skulker—"

"_You stay right where you are young man._" Mz. Wakeman said with the force that only someone who had raised a teenager could possess, "Your friends are all perfectly capable of holding the ghost at bay, you need rest, and _I _need you here to isolate an ectoplasmic enzyme." She shook her head, "Honestly, you don't give them enough credit. The way you act, you'd think they couldn't stop a break-in without your help."

The ghost boy thought on her words. Maybe he didn't have enough faith in his friends. But it wasn't like that! He knew his friends were capable, but it wasn't right, it wasn't fair for them to fight his battles. But then again, he'd do the same for them if one of them was in his position.

"Alright." Danny finally said grudgingly, "I'll wait. But as soon as you figure out a solvent, I've got to get back to Amity Park to grab a Fenton Thermos and finally end this."

"Whatever you feel you need to do, dear." Mz. Wakeman said simply as she brushed the swab on a Petri-dish.

_Back with Skulker_

Thanks to Cosmo and Wanda, the three friends and the hunter ghost had taken their fight all the way into the woods outside of town. _Poofing_ everyone out of the way of Skulker's attacks was a quite useful tactic, and while the ghost was growing more and more tired, the kids barely had a scratch on them. Jenny was the only one who was even getting close to tired, as she took the job of blocking the attacks that were too fast to _poof_ away from.

Despite his clear disadvantage, Skulker pressed on. He may have been stubborn and blinded by rage, but it couldn't be denied that he was determined, and tenacious. No matter what they threw at him, they just couldn't keep him down.

"We just have to keep this up until he's completely worn down." Jimmy reasoned as he shot another pulse from his device. "He's already been taken down once today, and he's wasting more energy than us. Logically, we'll outlast him."

"And since when have ghosts followed logic?" Timmy asked as he fired another star.

_Meanwhile with Danny_

"Well, this one looks promising, let's give it a try." Mz. Wakeman held up a vial filled with translucent green liquid after a few minutes of incubating and centrifuging the swab sample from Danny's mouth.

The teen held his breath as the scientist dripped a few drops experimentally on his elbow. The green goop showed no sign of change.

"Great." Danny sighed. It was starting to look like he'd be stuck like this forever.

"Wait for it…" Mz. Wakeman said, staring intently at the spot.

Slowly but surely, the goop changed from green to clear, and began to slip off as it became less of a gunk and more of a slime. After a few minutes Danny's arms were free.

The joy and freedom Danny felt at that moment really couldn't be described, so he settled for a triumphant "Yes! Yes!" He turned to Mz. Wakeman. "Thank you so much!" He changed to his ghost form and flew into the air, laughing.

Then he winced at the pain in his back.

"Now, you'll still need some rest after that injury," The scientist said sagely, picking up the ice-pack that had fallen to the floor, "But you've been re—"

"No can do." The ghost boy cut her off. "I've got a job to do, and my friends need my help." With that, he pulled out his Recaller. Can't catch Skulker without the Fenton Thermos. In another second he was gone, back to Amity Park.

Mz. Wakeman sighed. That boy was going to run himself ragged someday.

_Yet again with Skulker_

The hunter ghost's tenacity was beyond what any of the children had expected. Really, Skulker was probably pushing himself even more than when he fought with the ghost child. Any other day he would have called it quits about an hour ago and tried again later, but today he was mad as a hornets' nest. It was mostly because of that annoyance in the pink hat. He was like a more grating version of the whelp. And that was saying something.

The kids were wearing down, while Skulker's exhaustion seemed to have leveled out. Soon they'd be about even in terms of energy.

"It might be best to retreat and regains some strength." Jimmy suggested, the most winded of the three.

"Give up?" Timmy asked incredulously.

"That's not what I said—" the boy genius insisted, but Turner just talked over him.

"We can't give up! Danny's hurt, and we've gotta keep this creep away from him until he gets better!"

"We can keep this up long enough for my mom to get rid of that stuff, no problem." Jenny said confidently, reflecting an ecto-blast back at the ghost.

"But if we don't, it could mean we'd _all_ be pelts on his wall." Jimmy reasoned.

"We'll be fine!" the boy in the pink hat assured him. With that Timmy _poofed_ in close for a particularly painful shot with his star-shooter.

By coincidence, this was the time Danny returned with the Fenton Thermos. Thankfully his parents had still been out and he hadn't had to go through any lengthy explanations. After exiting the portal he saw Timmy dangerously close to Skulker. This was it. This was where Danny would finally finish this problem.

But Skulker had been hunting Danny for a long time. Almost as soon as the ghost boy arrived, the hunter sensed his presence. He whipped around and shot an ecto-blast right into where Danny had been hit before. Luckily Skulker was still winded, and this blast was much weaker than before, but it was compacting a previous wound.

Danny dropped the thermos and curled into a fetal position, but he stayed in the air. He couldn't fall now. He couldn't fail. He had to fix this!

Below, Timmy picked up the Fenton thermos and looked at the tired but furious Skulker. The boy pressed the button and… fwooosh! Skulker was unexpectedly sucked into the thermos.

"Huh?" Danny was too tired to notice his foe was gone for a second.

"Don't worry Danny, we got this." The boy in the pink hat assured him with a smile.

"We had everything under control, you know." Jenny told him as the halfa landed softly. "You didn't have to charge in and get yourself hurt like that."

"Although, I am glad you came when you did. We couldn't have gone on forever." Jimmy added.

Danny just started laughing. After all that trouble, the problem was finally fixed, and he didn't even do it! It was such a relief now that it was over.

"Hahaha! Hahahahahahaaaaaaaw yeah, it's late." Danny's last laugh turned into a yawn. "I'm going to bed." He turned his recaller back on and left for home, with his friends just staring at him. But hey, after all this, he _did _deserve a good rest.

**The End**

**Author's Notes: I know it's short, but I did five chapters in less than three months! Sometimes in my longer stories I'd have three months between chapters! I'd say that's productive. Now, like Danny said. It's late, and I'm going to bed. G'night!**


End file.
